Shea Patterson: Game is like Baker Mayfield, but this is a different offense and writing off Peters to beat him out is silly. Also silly: concern trolling from rival fanbases. Craig compares him to 1970s Vikings, also Jim Harbaugh.

Sam feels good with Patterson and Van Jefferson. The safety, Anderson, could be the biggest impact one. Sam thought Michigan had Jefferson on signing day (yeah go ahead and read into that).

Sparties gonna Spart: we feel bad for the Outback in East Lansing.

South Carolina preview: dink and dunk offense that dies against elite defenses (hello!).

Arizona State University and Vice President of Football Operations Herm Edwards unveiled plans for a restructured ASU football New Leadership Model approach using a general manager structure. ASU is a a collaborative approach to managing the ASU football program that includes sport and administrative divisions, which will operate as distinct, but collective units focused on elevating all aspects of the department to form a multi-layered method to the talent evaluation and recruiting processes, increase its emphasis on both student-athlete and coach development and retention, and provide a boost in resource allocation and generation.

Is Michigan’s offense complicated? Auburn’s Wing-T system is a ton of motion and frippery to make something very simple look complicated. Michigan is sort of like that.

Hoops talk: ideas for PG and the four? MAAR, Brooks, Poole at 1-2-3 and put Mathews at the four. Beilein offenses can’t handle a PG who won’t shoot.

Analysis: Michigan overpowered an under-talented MSU team, tonight. This was by no means a bombs-away performance, but they controlled the puck against a team that they should dominate. By the third period, Michigan was getting into the slot with ease. Tony Calderone had a day, netting a hat trick. The offense was driven, again, primarily by the top DMC line. This was a desired and expected result. Doing the same tomorrow night will be a good sign.

[After THE JUMP: Full House. On the stat sheet. Look, it's a thing in hockey stats, okay?]

I've got some catching up to do and Brian has done much of the catching up, so make sure you read his recruiting refocus posts for the offense and defense. I'm going to try to avoid mentioning stuff he's already put in there to avoid redundancy.

Ohio State Visit Fallout

Like I said, I've got some catching up to do.

The highest-profile official visitor for the OSU game was five-star FL OT Nicholas Petit-Frere. Sam Webb has insisted for a while that Michigan was very much in the race, and Steve Lorenz heard the visit "exceeded expectations," though Petit-Frere himself isn't showing his cards. He did connect with his player host, another academically inclined offensive tackle:

“I got a chance to hang out with a few of the players,” reported Petit-Frere. “I hung out with (his player host) Grant Newsome and some other players as well. It was a good time.”

“We had some commonalities that we shared between ourselves,” he later added. “I enjoyed being able to talk to them. It was really more about getting to ask them how school is, what is it like being there, and everything else.”

The most important visitor from a team need perspective was top-100 NJ DT Tyler Friday, who's been quiet throughout his recruitment. As Brian mentioned today, Michigan is gaining a lot of momentum here after their visit, as evidenced by the multi-part parent interview treatment from Sam. If Tyler's reaction was anything like that of his dad, Michigan is sitting pretty:

With this official, my wife and I had been there twice already, so it wasn’t like there really was anything else for us to see. It was more of just getting confirmation of what it is academically, and one thing we know is Michigan is up there. It’s just one of the best academic schools out there. So it’s a great combination. Of course, it’s an excellent football program, which Tyler of course loves. With a future when you finish football, you’ll have that stamp of Michigan. It’s just an awesome combination to have. It’s perfect. We talked about the business school because Tyler wants to major in economics and they have the top five business school. Everything is plus, plus, plus. We just go down and check off the list and they have the criteria for what we, as parents, are looking for for our child.

"It was awesome," he said. "It was probably the best visit I’ve had. How much the coaches all cared really stuck out. It was really cool to see that. They weren’t acting like car salesmen at all. They were genuine and caring people and really made it feel like they wanted me. They really care about the players and not just the program and on-field stuff. During my entire visit you could really tell what kind of people they all are. It was a really good time and the atmosphere for the game was great. It was just an all-around great trip."

Georgia and UCLA are also in the mix, but Michigan looks to have taken control here.

Michigan also made a big move with top-100 LA WR JaMarr Chase, according to Sam, who posted that he's hearing Michigan now holds the lead. The Wolverines will have to sweat out an upcoming official visit to TCU, a serious contender, but I still put in a Crystal Ball pick for the good guys.

Four-star NJ DE Jayson Oweh went into his visit with Ohio State and Penn State out in front. He told 247's Steve Wiltfong that Michigan gave him a lot to think about:

"I need to sit back and reevaluate everything but they impressed way more than I thought they would," he said.

The staff also made solid progress with underclassmen like 2019 four-star CO QB Luke McCaffrey (yep, another one), who said his brother Dylan "loves it" in Ann Arbor, and 2019 four-star VA safety Litchfield Ajavon, who said the Big House was "the loudest and most intense stadium" he's visited.

The Ole Miss Situation

Van Jefferson comin' on up? [Bryan Fuller]

No post that touches on recruiting at the moment can style itself complete without mentioning the likely transfer of three Ole Miss players. While Shea Patterson and Van Jefferson are offensive players, they take up scholarships. Deontay Anderson is a safety who will (probably) be a redshirt sophomore next year, which puts him in the same class as J'Marick "Ol' Woods" Woods and Jaylen Kelly-Powell.

At this moment it seems likely that Michigan will get those three players, and only those three players. Rivals's assertions that "up to seven" Rebels could end up at Michigan might be technically true, but one glance at the roster should be sufficient evidence to discount a mass transfer of that magnitude. Unless your name is Greg Little, Michigan's need to have a 2018 recruiting class all but shuts the door.

If Michigan does lock down the three names above that takes this class from 20-22 to 17-19 without additional attrition; that is certainly a possibility with so many borderline fifth-years. It's a delicate situation.

But, anyway, the defense:

Defensive end

various Upshaws [247]

Michigan has commits from instate SDE Adrian Hutchinson and FL DE Taylor Upshaw. Hutchinson is a Michigan legacy and four-star who projects as a Wormley/Van Bergen sort of burly strongside guy without huge pass rush upside. Upshaw, the son of NFL DE Regan Upshaw, is a high-upside wildcard who Michigan flipped from Florida this fall. He just started playing football and is all potential and no polish.

Michigan took a couple of excellent WDE prospects a year ago and redshirted Luiji Vilain due to injury, so need for an edge rusher is not pressing. Michigan is still heavily pursuing two five-star-ish sorts. MD DE Eyabi Anoma is at St. Frances, which means he's being coached by Biff Poggi. Alabama is his presumed landing spot all the same; Anoma did visit for OSU but he's been to Alabama three times already and is set to return this weekend. Writing seems on the wall there.

NJ DE Jayson Oweh also came up for the OSU game; he seems like a three-way OSU-PSU-Michigan battle. As of a week ago Wiltfong thought it was Michigan vs PSU.

Defensive tackle

The one spot on the defense where Michigan absolutely needs a body or two, because you have two starters at each DT spot and like QB you never want to take a pass. Fortunately, Michigan appears to be in the driver's seat for NJ DT Tyler Friday. The book-length multi-part Sam Webb interview with a parent has started dropping over at The Michigan Insider, and the crystal balls are rolling in. Friday is a consensus top 100 guy that Michigan looks set to fend off Alabama and OSU for.

A second guy probably has to come from off the board. MO DT Michael Thompson hasn't returned for an official after taking a summer visit; the same goes for NC DT Rick Sandidge.

Linebacker

just guys bein' dudes

Michigan has one solid ILB commit in IN LB Cameron McGrone and one wobbly viper in GA LB Otis Reese. McGrone sounds like Devin Bush 2.0...

Aggressive backer who gets moving downhill in a hurry. Shows good burst and quickness off the snap of the ball and timing when he is blitzing and shooting gaps. Plays with good motor and looks like he is always running at 100 percent. Physical and takes on blocks as well as arrives at ball carriers with impact.

...a flash of backfield doom waiting to happen. 24/7 is very bullish on him; if he sticks at his current spot (#31) he'll be a five star on Signing Day. Other sites are less enthused, but Bush was a 3/4 star borderline guy, so whatever.

Reese was one of the first commits in the class, but this seems un-good.

Reese was actually the guy who dropped before teammate Aubrey Solomon last year, and seemed like a major reason that Solomon did end up in Ann Arbor after all. But visits are visits; Michigan will strive to get him up one more time before he makes a final decision. FWIW, there have been some rumblings that Reese is #2 in the pecking order for a single slot in Georgia's class.

With three touted guys in last year's class Michigan can go relatively light here. If Reese does decommit they might be happy with just McGrone and use that spot to shore up some weaker parts of the roster. There are no LBs on the board, really. GA ATH Michael Barrett is a dual threat QB who Michigan appears set to take; he's probably not a QB and Michigan already has two RBs in the class, so he might be another Bush 2.0 candidate. He's listed at 5'11" and 215, which is Bush territory, and looks like a linebacker playing QB on tape. I mean that as a compliment.

Secondary

Greens

I'm hurling all DB-shaped guys in the same group because Michigan has recruited four guys who are more or less clones. TX CB/S gents German and Gemon Green are literally twins. FL S Sammy Faustin and GA CB Myles Sims are their other brothers Darrell; all are long-limbed 6'2" guys suited to batting away fades and the like. Sims's nickname may as well be the whole group's: "Spider." Collectively they have eight arms and there's probably a silk gland in there somewhere.

Sims and Gemon Green are highly touted top 250 types; German and Faustin are three star sorts. In German's case his ranking was depressed by an ACL tear that prevented him from showing out during the heart of you-get-ranked-here season.

Michigan's pursuit of other defensive backs seems limited to CT CB Josh Jobe, a very soft Miami commit who is spending his final year of high school in the heart of Don Brown territory at Cheshire Academy, which just sent Tarik Black to Michigan. Confidence about Michigan's ability to flip Jobe has waxed and waned. Of late it's bottomed out; he just told a 24/7 writer that there's a "120 percent chance" he flips to... Alabama. Deontay Anderson appears to be taking his spot anyway.

The only other dude currently on the board is CA S Talanoa Hufanga, who visited for OSU. He was widely expected to go to Oregon prior to Willie Taggart's departure. That might open the door; still a tall order to pry a Samoan guy from California when the whole West Coast is hot on his tail. (CA S Bryan Addison is committing Sunday but has not fielded an in-home from Harbaugh, so... yeah.)

Michigan loses zero defensive backs to graduation unless Brandon Watson doesn't get invited back—unlikely—so Anderson would be a net gain of 5 DBs and almost certainly shut the door for anyone else.

After the collapse at Ohio State on Monday, there's been quite a bit of consternation among Michigan fans about the course of the season. The Wolverines sit at 7-3, and they're only 2-3 against viable competition, with their best win coming against the #82-ranked team on KenPom. If they don't at least come away with a split in their upcoming games against UCLA and Texas, there's good reason to worry about how this team is going to compile a worthy tournament resumé.

To get an idea of how the season could play out, I wanted to take a look at how John Beilein's Michigan teams have improved (or not) over the course of the season. I'm an idiot, however, so thankfully our very own Alex Cook had the same thought and could actually put it into action. Alex used the game score metric from Bart Torvik*—a 0-100 score for each game based on adjusted efficiency margin—to map out the in-season progression of Beilein's teams. This, for example, is last season's graph. The blue line tracks the individual game scores; the black line is a five-game running average; the gray line is the overall season trend. As you certainly guessed, the 2016-17 graph shows a great deal of late-season improvement:

Waltoning, The Graph

The first question that I had: was last year more the exception or the rule? Alex went through each season to get the answer. Positive numbers show in-season improvement, negative the opposite:

I'm about to get into much more detail, but the initial takeaway is we can't assume that Beilein is going to turn things around this season without a couple things breaking the right way. Using the above as a guide, it's time to take a look at the potential ways this season plays out.

Shea Patterson and friends watch. It's happening? I mean. Can't throw a rock without hitting someone who says SOURCES are telling him that Shea Patterson is a lock for Michigan and possibly as soon as this weekend. Sam Webb's put in a crystal ball, which he hastens to say is not a Gut Feeling, and here's the Blade's Michigan beat writer:

Sources: Michigan is the front-runner to land Shea Patterson, and the Ole Miss QB expects to be eligible to play immediately.

He had 49 catches for 543 yards and was on pace to best that as a sophomore when he dislocated his elbow before the Texas A&M game.

That is likely it despite some overheated reports that up to seven Ole Miss players are interested in Michigan. Taking the three guys above already stretches Michigan's scholarships pretty thin. Anyone who doesn't play tackle is in tough for playing time, and per Rashan Gary's mom Greg Little isn't interested. Gary and Little became friends over the course of their recruitment so that's as good a source as any.

The other guys mentioned haven't set visits and it's unclear that Michigan would be interested in them.

Why wasn't it Cracker Barrel though? For some reason, Harbaugh flying down to see guys he might have on his football team caused the internet to blow up. Harbaugh claps back at Mark Dantonio? Go crazy, guys. Harbaugh does a thing literally all football coaches do dozens of times a year with high school players? Maybe let that one slide.

What do you say, internet?

Actually, it's very cool and good that Ole Miss got in trouble for loaner cars but a multi-millionaire can fly a private jet into Oxford to recruit players away from the team. Very cool. Very good. https://t.co/YS4mD9r79b

Personally, I'd take the CBs who whooped up on Simmie Cobbs over the one who got whooped until he got a safety bracket, but Michigan's guys were probably hurt by a lack of volume.

Add in Rashan Gary to the five returning guys in the above tweets and you've got quite a platform to build on.

Missed tackles: nah. Josh Liskiewitz, one of PFF's Big Ten evaluators, was grilled by Iowa fans because Josey Jewell was omitted from the team above. This spawned an interesting twitter thread in which Liskiewitz defended himself with various stats he'd compiled. The most interesting from a Michigan fan's perspective:

[he == Jewell, FWIW]

This is true to an extent, but among #B1G LBs he ranked 38th in tackling efficiency, which takes into account misses per attempt. By comparison, #Boilermakers LB Ja'Whuan Bentley had more total tackles than Jewell and half the MTs. Devin Bush missed just 3 total.

Jewell had an 86 grade—which would have made him first team All-SEC or All-Pac12, but finished 9th(!) in the Big Ten. We assume that Tegray Scales, Jason Cabinda, and Ryan Connelly are three of the five guys in front of Jewell, FWIW.

Prior to the injury, Peters was 37 of 64 for 486 yards passing in five games, including three starts. He's thrown a team-high four touchdowns, and no interceptions.

Sweet fancy Moses.

In other bowl injury news, Tarik Black is back in practice and could play in the bowl game. Harbaugh says he's "leaning towards not doing it," and, I mean... don't. Michigan's in a good spot in the bowl game without him and a potential fifth year is far more valuable than whatever marginal bonus chance at a bowl win he provides.

Good luck, whoever you are. South Carolina has axed their offensive coordinator. Er, their co-offensive coordinator Kurt Roper. The other guy, Bryan McClendon, is at least temporarily the only cook in the Gamecock kitchen. He is 33 years old and facing down Don Brown with one of the worst offenses in the country. Good luck with that, sir.

"My reaction is that there should be more than four teams in the playoffs," Harbaugh told reporters. "Again, I want to reiterate: 8 teams, 12 teams, 16 teams. Sixteen would be ideal in the playoffs."

For one, a team that reached the finals is playing 17 games. For two, the urgency of the regular season is obliterated if last year's Michigan team finishes their season they way they did and still gets in.

Add one fan. ESPN's Sarah Spain has been on a journey across college football to find a team to root for, and she stopped by the MGoTailgate before the OSU game last week:

Saturday morning I headed out to meet one of my hosts for the day, Gordie Fall (named in honor of Gordie Howe), at the famous MGoBus. The tailgate featured craft beer from Wolverine State Brewing Company, loads of breakfast food and, of course, the maize and blue MGoBus owned by Matt and Sara Demorest. While I was there, I learned more about life on campus and the UM scene with Brian Cook and Seth Fisher, of popular Michigan sports site MGoBlog.com. I also met former Wolverines running back Vincent Smith (you may remember him from this), who's now running community gardens in Flint, Michigan, and his hometown of Pahokee, Florida, to increase access to healthy foods, reduce juvenile crime and use gardening-based intervention to curtail violence. Very cool.

Adam was also there! Adam doesn't talk much. Thanks to everyone else's contributions but certainly not ours, Michigan was the pick. Welcome, Sarah. Prepare to be called a Walmart Wolverine despite going to Cornell.